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Came across this article, Deal or No Deal? By Steve Kim (Sep 22, 2006), It's about Juan "Baby Bull" Diaz, signing with Don Kingi, and pissing off the Gboys. It's a good read giving each side of a deal between a manager and a promoter, in this case promoters. Was the manager right or wrong in his dealings and who paid for it in the end? This is an excerpt of the article.
Deal or No Deal? By Steve Kim
After what has transpired in the last week or so, it would be interesting to see how Willie Savannah would fare on NBC's hit show, 'Deal or No Deal'.

Early last week, word got out - and was confirmed by Savannah himself - that his fighter, Juan Diaz, a promotional free agent, would be inking a new pact with Golden Boy Promotions. It was widely reported by everyone in boxing that all that would be needed were a few t's to be crossed and some i's to be dotted. But basically, a verbal agreement had been reached.

And you know where this is going, right?

Early this week, Savannah and Diaz would pull an end-around by signing with Don King, stunning most observers and infuriating Golden Boy Promotions - and the Golden Boy himself.

"It's really mind-boggling to me that a guy who gave us his word and said, 'Hey, we are going to go with you guys,' would do this. He told various sources and it just goes to show me that Willie Savannah can not be trusted."

Last week, Oscar's organization was in Las Vegas, preparing for the rematch between Marco Antonio Barrera and Rocky Juarez. It did seem odd when no official announcement was made by Golden Boy regarding Diaz during the weekend. It was at this time that they had gotten a bit suspicious.

“I think when he called up Richard Schaefer, because I was somewhere else doing some other business, he called up saying, 'Well, we just got offered a half-million dollars. Can you top it?'" recalled De La Hoya on Thursday afternoon. "And we had a deal already, we had a verbal agreement and so topping bonuses and going back and forth, we're not going to play that game, ever."

Willie, say it ain't so!!!

"Well," said Savannah, giving his side of the story, "number one, Fred Levin (their attorney) had called Don during the week of the James Toney fight and Fred said he would get back to Don. Don told him to get back with him. Same thing with Bob Arum. So finally Fred got back with him and the offer that Don made was better. So now I'm being criticized for changing my mind. People change their mind all over the world, everyday."

Which is true, but there is a huge difference between going with rocky road over chocolate chip ice cream and leaving someone at the altar.

He makes no bones about it; he gave Golden Boy their word.

“Yeah, we were expected to sign with them, sure was."

Savannah is known as a good man, honest, generous and with a long history of good-works with wayward youth in Houston. He likes to brag that for 26 years he has lost money working with kids. Nobody doubts he has the best interests of Juan Diaz at heart. But right now, his word and reputation is as good as spinach.

" Look, lemme tell you something," he says, "I've been concerned about my image. I've always been concerned about my word. I've always been concerned with what I tell people. And this was agony that you can not believe, that my word should be my word, regardless of how much it costs Juan. And finally I just got down to it and I just made a decision that I was going to go for the best deal for Juan."

This is inarguable, as Savannah does have a fiduciary duty to Diaz. You just wish it would have transpired differently.

“We got a one-year deal, OK? How many people get a chance to sign for a year?" he asked rhetorically. "That's the same thing Golden Boy was doing too. And if we made a mistake, it'll show up in a year, not two years, not three years down the road."

Now who knows if King will live up to his contractual obligations? That's always a dicey proposition, but it has been rumored that Diaz received a $500,000 signing bonus.

“I don't know, something like that," said Savannah, when asked about their upfront money. In other words, yeah, they got a half-mil.

"The deal was a lot better financially than the one with Golden Boy," he would say later. "Although we wanted to go with Golden Boy, my first choice would've been Main Events or Joe DeGuardia. But at the time I felt real good about Golden Boy also. We had good conversations with Oscar and Richard. I had no intentions, no intentions, of changing horses in the middle of the stream.

“At the end of the day, I mean you can ask my wife, I lost ten pounds agonizing over this, worrying about my credibility. But I think my credibility would have been worse had I not taken the best deal for Juan. So they can bash me all they want. A lot of the stuff they're saying is not true but I'm not going to even comment on it. If Oscar and Schaefer feel like bashing a 95-year old man from the ghetto – let 'em do it."

(For the record, unless he's aged better than Sophia Loren, Savannah isn't nearly that old. As for where he's from, that's unknown.)

But let's say life inside the King-dom isn't all it's cut out to be. What type of credibility will Savannah have in 12 months in the open market?

“Why is it that this deal is so much different than anything else that goes on in boxing, everyday?" Savannah points out. "This goes on in boxing all the time. This is the first time in 26 years that I've changed course. Never, never, have I changed course. I don't care if I got a bad end of a deal. I always stuck with it 99.9-percent of my time with Ronnie Shields, Freddie Jackson and all these guys we were fighting. They fought with hurt hands, colds - same thing with Juan - and we never pulled out of fights. Maybe once in every ten years.

“And because I believe that you shouldn't screw the promoter up. But on this particular situation, here, they can bash me, they can do all the stuff they want to. But I just decided that I was just going to do what I thought was best for Juan."

Some believe - particularly folks like Bob Arum - that this is an ironic twist given De La Hoya's own history. But in any respect, it just doesn't look kosher. All of this could've been avoided if Savannah would've just shown more patience and not said a word.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would've taken the advice from Bob Arum - take your time," he admits. "That's what I would've done. I acted too soon with Golden Boy and that was the mistake that I made."

As for De La Hoya, he still seemed a bit dismayed by what occurred. But he says his company will press on with the same mission statement in dealing with boxers.

“We’re going to continue doing the same thing," he says. "It's very unfortunate that we ran into a bad seed with Willie Savannah. I don't think everyone is really like this in boxing. I really do think that there are good people in boxing and that we can do business in boxing. Y'know, so far guys like Hopkins, Barrera, guys like Juan Manuel Marquez, top guys, are extremely happy with us. And so as long as we keep on doing the same thing, everything will be OK. It's just very unfortunate we had to run into this type of situation with a Willie Savannah."

Diaz will be making the next defense of his WBA lightweight belt on November 4th on Showtime, underneath Sergei Liakhovich-Shannon Briggs in Phoenix, Arizona. But don't expect them to be in the ring with any Golden Boy fighters.

“De La Hoya and them made it clear to my attorney that we will not be fighting any of their guys anytime soon," said Savannah, who says he never tried to raise the ante by leveraging King's offer against Golden Boy's. But then who could blame them for being weary of him at this point in time?

"Maybe my name was too good in boxing," Savannah reasons. "Today, I can lie like everybody else and don't even feel bad about it. I mean, I can talk s**t and do whatever else I want to do, like everybody else does," he jokes (or at least, we hope he is).

 

I sure am, do you have a question?

 

You should be able to PM me if you are a member.

 

Really it depends on where you are at, in the U.S. anywhere from $500 to $1200. In Mexico, $200 if you are lucky. Erick Morales made I believe $4 for his PD. Those purses were for unsigned fighters, the bigger promoters pay $1500 to $2500 usually but the PD purses go up way more if the fighter is an Olympian or a much sought after amateur